The Gooney Bird Goes To War

The Douglas Commercial airliner dons khaki as a workhorse for the Allies

Originally published in The Dispatch magazine, Volume 23, Number 1, Spring, 1998
edition. If you are interested in subscribing to The Dispatch please write
to The Commemorative Air Force, ATTN: Dispatch Editor, PO Box 62000, Midland, TX
79711-2000 or call (432) 563-1000. Reproduced with permission.

In 1929, Donald W. Douglas reorganized The Douglas Company
into the Douglas Aircraft Company and built a new plant at Clover Field in Santa Monica,
Calif. Douglas had built torpedo bombers and the famous Douglas World Cruisers for the
U.S. Navy, and observation planes for the Army Air Service during the 1920s. They also
built the M series of single-engine commercial transports, used extensively to fly the
U.S. mail.

In addition to military designs, the Santa Monica plant began production of single and
twin-engine amphibian flying boats, in anticipation of an expanding civilian luxury
transport market. That market, however, evaporated when the U.S. stock market crashed on
October 29, 1929 triggering a worldwide economic depression. Douglas existing
military contracts and its conservative fiscal policies kept the company afloat and
financially sound.

Birth of the Douglas Commercial

By 1932, problems with the safety of single-engine transports and high maintenance of
wood and fabric planes caused U.S. airlines to look for something faster, safer and more
dependable. Boeing was developing its Model 247, a sleek, low-wing twin-engine transport,
with 70 on order by United Air Lines (UAL). In August 1932, Donald Douglas received a
letter from UAL rival Transcontinental & Western Air (TWA) asking if Douglas was
interested in designing and building ten or more three-engine transports for TWA.

Despite the relatively small market for a new airliner, Douglas proposed an advanced
twin-engine design, and on September 20, 1932 a contract for the Douglas Commercial One
(DC-1) was signed, with options for sixty further planes, if the prototype proved
successful.

Powered by 690 hp Wright Cyclone engines, the DC-1 made its first flight at Clover
Field on July 1, 1933, just nine months after the contracts signing, and TWA ordered
twenty production versions with the fuselage stretched by two feet, increasing the seating
to 14 passengers. The production model was designated the DC-2 and 59 were built in 1934
and another 130 in 1935. The U.S. military also took note of the new Douglas transport,
the Navy ordering five as R2D-1s while the Army Air Corps ordered 18 cargo transports as
C-33s.

In 1935, American Airlines asked Douglas if it could modify the DC-2 with a wider cabin
to carry sleeping berths, to replace the airlines Curtiss Condor biplane transports
on the New York-Chicago route. American obtained a $4.5 million loan to prove it could pay
for the new aircraft. When the first Douglas Sleeper Transport (DST) took to the air on
December 17, 1935, it was really a new design, using less than 15 percent of the
components of the DC-2, and as day transport versions, without sleeping berths, began to
be ordered, they were designated DC-3s.

Engines for the DC-3/DST could be either 9-cylinder Wright Cyclones or 14-cylinder
Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasps, both producing 1,000 to 1,200 hp, depending on the model.
Due to a lack of funding for new designs, the Army Air Corps ordered 35 C-39s, which
combined the fuselage of the DC-2/C-33 with the wings and tail of the DC-3. The last C-39
was delivered in September 1939, the same month that the Second World War began in Europe.

The Gooney Bird Dons Khaki

With a global war a real possibility, the American military finally began to rearm in
1940. In September, the Army ordered 147 military versions of the DC-3, to be called
C-47s. Powered by 1,200 hp P&W R-1830-92 engines, these were to be built in
Douglas new plant in Long Beach, Calif. Military funds also allowed the opening of a
third plant in Oklahoma City, Okla. Planes built at Santa Monica carried the suffix DO,
Long Beach DL and Oklahoma City DK.

Prior to Americas entry into World War II, Douglas had delivered 430 civilian
DSTs and DC-3s, and about 149 more were either on order by airlines or under construction.
The latter were impressed into military service, often with little more modification than
the fitting of military radios, and given a variety of designations, as shown in the table
below.

Designation

Airline customer

Total

C-48

United

1

C-48A

unknown

3

C-48C

Pan Am

7

C-49

TWA

6

C-49A

Delta

1

C-49B

Eastern

3

C-49C

Delta

2

C-49D

Eastern

6

C-49J

various

34

C-49K

various

23

C-50

American

4

C-50A

American

2

C-50B

Braniff

3

C-50C

Penn Central

1

C-50D

Penn Central

4

C-51

Can Col

1

C-52

United

1

C-52A

Western

1

C-52B

United

2

C-52C

Eastern

1

C-53C

various

17

C-68

unknown

2

Undesignated

Pan Am

12

R4D-2

Eastern

2

R4D-4

Pan Am

10

The C-47, officially named Skytrain by the Army Air Forces, was fitted with a large
two-section cargo door on the left side of the fuselage. The floor was reinforced for up
to 6,000 pounds of cargo or 28 paratroops in folding seats on each side of the cabin. The
first C-47 was delivered from the Long Beach facility in November 1941 and the last on
December 23, 1941 when production shifted to the C-47A, with minor improvements, including
a 24-volt electrical system.

The C-47A was produced in greater numbers than any other military version of the DC-3,
with 2,954 built in Long Beach and 2,299 in Oklahoma City. The Skytrain had a top speed of
230 mph at 8,800 feet, service ceiling of 24,000 feet and maximum allowable weight of
31,000 pounds but normal cruise as 160 mph and normal loaded weight was closer to 26,000
pounds. The normal fuel load of 804 gallons was good for about 1,600 miles, but up to 900
additional gallons could be installed in ferry tanks in the fuselage, giving a maximum
ferry range of 3,800 miles.

By early 1942, the need to fly supplies in the China-Burma-India theater over the
Himalayan Mountains or "Hump" resulted in the C-47B, with two-stage
superchargers and improved heaters for high-altitude operations. Over 3,200 were built and
Skytrains carried much of the load over the Hump until April 1943, when the first Curtiss
C-46 Commandos began to arrive in India. The C-46 proved better at high-altitudes, and
many C-47Bs had their second stage supercharger clutches removed and were redesignated
C-47Ds for normal service.

A second military version of the DC-3 was the C-53 Skytrooper, designed as a troop
transport, without the large cargo loading door and with provisions for towing transport
gliders. The initial batch of 221 C-53s had fixed metal seats and was powered by the same
P&W R-1830-92 engine as the C-47. Eight were built for Arctic operations as C-53Bs,
and the designation C-53C was used for aircraft impressed into service from the airlines,
as listed in the table above. The final version was the C-53D, whose 159 aircraft had
side-mounted seats in place of conventional seats.

The final USAAF version of the DC-3 produced in World War II was the C-117A, fitted
with 21 airline style seats and used as staff transports. Mechanically similar to the
C-47B, 17 of these more luxurious versions were built late in the war.

Ready For Duty With The Navy

Of more than 10,000 military DC-3s built or impressed into service, the U.S. Navy and
Marine Corps ended up with only 567, most transferred from USAAF contracts. The
designation R4D indicated that it was the fourth transport obtained from Douglas. The
R4D-1 was basically a C-47 cargo carrier fitted with Navy equipment. The first of 106 was
delivered in February 1942. The designations R4D-2 and R4D-4 were given to ex-airline
aircraft, while 20 R4D-3s were C-53 personnel transports originally ordered for the Army.

The 238 R4D-5s were C-47As transferred from the USAAF, and were the most produced Navy
version of the DC-3 design. A number were equipped for special duties including electronic
and radar countermeasures and air-sea and anti-submarine warfare training. Also built
originally for the Army, as C-47Bs, were 150 R4D-6 aircraft, many of which also served in
special roles. The last Navy version was the R4D-7, 41 of which were used as navigation
trainers.

Primary user of the R4D was the Naval Air Transport Service, created on December 12,
1941. Naval transport squadrons operated R4Ds between the United States and many overseas
bases while operations in Pacific combat areas were carried out by the South Pacific
Combat Air Transport Service. Carrying high-priority loads, the R4Ds helped keep Navy and
Marine air and surface units supplied and in the fight.

Under Foreign Flags

Great Britain received over 1,900 C-47/C-53s under Lend-Lease during World War II,
calling them Dakotas, or simply "Daks." Dakota Marks I, III and IV were
cargo/paratroop carriers corresponding to the C-47, C-47A and C-47B. The Dakota Mk. IIs
were basically C-53 personnel transports.

Even before the beginning of the war, the DC-3 was recognized as a world-class
transport, and several countries sought to build it under license. In 1938, Soviet
engineer Boris P. Lisunov traveled to Santa Monica to study Douglas production techniques
for nearly two years. Licensed production began in 1940 in Moscow under the initial
designation PS-84, soon changed to Li-2. Powered by two 900 hp Shvetsov M-62 engines,
derived from Wrights R-1820F series radial, production of the Li-2 was moved to
Tashkent in 1941 when German forces threatened Moscow. Some Li-2s were armed with gun
turrets and others were used as night bombers, carrying up to 4,000 pounds of bombs
underwing. Production continued until the end of the war and is thought to have totaled
more than 2,000.

In early 1938, Showa began licensed production of the DC-3 in Japan for the Japanese
Navy under the designation L2D. Showa built 414 in both cargo and personnel transport
versions, and another 70 or so were built by Nakajima. Powered by 14-cylinder Mitsubishi Kinsei
engines rated at 1,000 to 1,560 hp, the L2D was widely used by the Japanese Navy and was
given the Allied code name TABBY. A row of extra windows extending aft from the cockpit
helped differentiate it from Allied C-47/R4Ds.

Service Above And Beyond

On D-Day, June 6, 1944, over 800 Douglas Skytrains and Skytroopers dropped or airlanded
13,000 U.S. paratroopers behind German lines in support of the liberation of occupied
Europe. Dakotas did the same for the British airborne. In all theaters, they flew critical
supplies of food, medicine and equipment into combat zones and carried the most seriously
wounded back for care. And, of course, it often brought that most precious of cargos to
the GIs far from home  mail from home.

When asked to name the weapons that won World War II, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower is said
to have answered the C-47, bazooka, jeep and atomic bomb. Pretty good company for a plane
designed as a civil airliner. Of course, the end of the war was not the end of the Gooney
Bird. But thats another story.

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